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Kiddies, when you've seen it all come and go and come around again, you start to be able to pick out the shining pearls of wisdom in there amongst the dreck. I'm absolutely THRILLED to share a cultured strand or two with you, my dear readers.
 Okay Auntie...
I have a question. What's up with the whole earring thing for men these days? Does it even matter? One earring, two? Either side? Individual male preference?? Personally, I thought that maybe when they started wearing two at a time that they would help us out of forced traditions and stop making each side match!
So, what's your opinion?
Jane D. Zetsch www.lifeartdesigns.etsy.com
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I have been thinking about consumerism and how it relates to the accelerating spiral of fad and fashion cycles. For instance, 200 years ago, fashion experienced gradual shifts over the course of decades. Clothing was relatively costly and unimaginably durable by today’s standards. A young person of modest means during the 18th century would have expected to retain and use a coat throughout a lifetime. In fact, at that time, a garment in presentable condition was often included among the goods distributed in the execution of a will! I don’t mean a garment on the order of a Haute Couture gown trimmed in mink by Balenciaga: I mean an ordinary garment.
Starting around the time of the Industrial Revolution, clothing became less expensive, fashion cycles gradually became shorter, and shifts in style became more closely aligned with the passage of decades as punctuated by momentous events such as wars or economic disaster. In FDR’s day, they came up with the idea of planned obsolescence as a way to get people to spend and put money back into the economy. Unfortunately, it worked so well that it has established a constantly diminishing rate of time between item purchase and replacement. Today, we are replacing items on a regular basis that formerly would have lasted for many years if not a good part of an owner’s lifetime! For example, my late 1930s refrigerator was given away a few years ago because I needed the space. I think it is still working in its “new” home. On the other hand, the spiffy new side-by-side refrigerator I bought just 7 years ago is not cooling properly anymore. The coffee maker I bought last year will probably be ready for replacement just around the time that the new color comes out in an otherwise identical but significantly more expensive unit.
Fashion has followed this path to accelerated change as well. Today, clothing is just about disposable. Rather than polish a leather shoe (for instance), people I know will replace shoes as soon as the toes get scuffed or the heels wear down. Furthermore, this increasing volume of discarded waste fills up our landfills and pollutes our environment. The only economy that is stimulated by this rapidly increasing cycle of buying is China’s! Why aren’t “we” concerned about the fact that we don’t make anything anymore in this country? We just buy stuff (crap), and throw it away when it breaks. We discard a garment because it has a tiny tear. Nobody mends clothing anymore. Today, nobody repairs electric appliances, furniture, or anything else. Furthermore, we buy stuff we never use and throw it away when we’re tired of looking at it. Our intelligence and productive future has been outsourced. It comes down to this: everything we buy today is crap, and it’s taking over. At least, that’s the way I see it. What do you think?
BTW: You’re not related to Stanley Owlsley (the 1960’s hallucinogenic chemist), are you?
Ann
Backwoods Beadery
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